Lt. Gov. Garcia Encourages Young Readers With One Book 4 Colorado Program

DENVER (CBS4) – A program to get books into the hands of 4-year-olds in Colorado hinges on the idea that families serve as a child’s most important teachers.

Helping young kids read is the idea behind One Book 4 Colorado. The program chooses a new book each year and it is delivered free to children statewide.

The three books that are finalists this year are Pigsty, Grumpy Bird and How Do Dinosaurs Learn Their Colors? They will come in both Spanish and English.

“We’ll be distributing those to every 4-year-old in the state. That’s some 74,000 kids,” Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia said.

One Book 4 Colorado is the result of collaboration between Garcia’s office and several other agencies.

“We know that too many kids arrive at school for the first time just not prepared,” Garcia told CBS4 in an interview on Thursday. “They’re not on equal footing with their peers. These are kids that grew up in homes that don’t have books and there’s not a culture of literacy. We want to make sure that every young child has books in the home.”